The hardest part is definitely accessing the parallel universe where all the art is stored. I mean, at least this is how it feels to have an idea.

 

With AI, I think we're closer to this than ever before. I wouldn't doubt even a year from now at the rate things are going.

 

I did a refresh with my process a few years back for this very reason. Started sourcing sounds again from my old synth racks and forcing myself to bounce everything to audio. Once I get something, I just commit to it and keep moving. I still use plugins, albeit limited, but the majority of what I do now is committed to audio to avoid all the installing /uninstalling / updating. That's been a real game changer for me.

 

Think we might be talking about different things.
I love many software and I love trying new things.
A couple of years back tho, my HDD malfunctioned and I had to reinstall everything.
Ever since then I have a feeling that my PC is temporary and I should not start any major projects on it.
Or anywhere, for that matter. Because there's no such thing as a reliable storage.
Lately my drone's battery died, rendering it useless cause they're not making them anymore, which also reinforced the feeling.
It's about anxiety for me. I'd love to set everything up the way I want and get all my options and experimentatin back but I can't mentally or emotionally afford to.

 

I see what you mean now. Yeah thats pretty stressful.
Ive had that happen as well and took precautions afterwards by backing everything up on a little nas server I set up at home. But nothing will wreck you more than losing your hard drive. Thats a hard one to come back from.

So Im curious now, if the feeling you have for your pc is temporary, are you making any music at all or is that experience keeping you from doing so?

 

Well I'm sitting on top of a basically complete track which needs ear candy and transition fx for one :D
It does prevent me from writing and experimenting to a significant degree.

 

Getting out of bed.

 

Does Methylphenidate affect that positively or are there negative aspects of treating ADHD with that?

 

Couldn't say, I've not had much experience working on music with that treatment. I began the treatment pretty much the same time I found my current job which doesn't leave me much time for music unfortunately.

I've used amphetamine before though, and that worked wonders for a while (most of my finished tracks were done during that period). But amphetamine is not prescribed where I live, so I had to get it illegally, and in big quantities, so I ended up a speed junkie, and had to quit lol.

 

Uh, this was exactly what was holding me back for years from releasing, so I now have tons of unreleased things (which I think is not a bad thing, at least for me, because now I have so much stoff I can build up). I am focusing a lot on this aspect lately, so maybe I can give you two directions which really helped me, the second one being the crucial part about it.

1) Organization of workflow. In my case there is a big sample library I organized in a way I could easily find stuff (through reaper sample manager and windows explorer). I've seen people rely heavily on splice additionaly, if you have a intention you know what you have to search for. Good, if you know more than one route to archieve something. For example, if I want an impact, there are ways to get there fast: search for "impact" in sample library. Knowing where I placed some cinematic sample packs or synth stabs. Same in Serum preset browser. Same in splice or similar. Also knowing how fast it is to place a kick or other hit where I want the impact to happen and smash tons of long reverb on it, then shape the decay. Focusing a lot on things like that and getting used to it, I gained speed and confidence. It's crazy how many of those little ear candy and transition stuff I can get into my projects, it is of course a matter of style. Attention on those details could be helpful in almost any style I guess. Once I got quicker in doing those things, the more fun it became. It was a pain in the ass for years.

2) The crucial part was to get my head around how to get my workflow regarding ear candy and transitions to feel not unnatural and constructed anymore. It all came down to me, when I realized the most important thing is the aspect of sound imagination. I had to learn to be more visionary in this field. Hearing a 16 bar part nowadays, I sometimes skip through a few ideas in my head very fast, for example: "hearing" the synth filter opening, "hearing" the kick removed, "hearing" a reverb buildup on hats, "hearing" a marching snare roll added and slowly building up in volume, "hearing" the moment two or four bars before the next part where everything stops for a second, "hearing" what kind of ear candy could happen in this small moment of silence, "hearing" the crash when the beat drops back in. Even right now I have those seven examples of ear candy/transition I mentioned clear in my mind. I can also see the connection of those elements and the context of the track. It doesn't feel like just "putting it on top of it" anymore. Sure, it sounds like a stereotypical (boring?) edm buildup/drop, like a cliche of this topic - but on the other hand it is just a sort of template you can transfer to the style you want and fill with sounds/instruments you like.

Perhaps this helps a bit. A big inspiration for me was a producer called Bishu who makes beat battles on twitch/youtube and his workflow. You can easily hate the style of music he and his community produce (sort of new school dubstep, edm, autotuned goofy stuff) or at least find it too annoying. But somehow I just tried out his highly ADHD approach and adapt it to my style... worked wonder. I even started to mimic those ear candy stuff with my mouth like "duuuusssh", "donk donk", "sssstshak", I might look stupid af doing this, but hey, it helped a lot getting in this "I can hear things in my mind"-zone.

 

other - health issues

 

Sorry to hear this @shinyzen , hope youre on the mend

 

Kitten asleep on studio chair. Moving the little cuteness is a workflow killer.

 

The anonymity of commenting here might actually let me talk about this truthfully for a change, so I am going to blogpost, feel free to ignore this.

For me it's absolutely fear of rejection. More terror than fear, honestly.

I am absolutely terrified that people will think it's awful, lazy or lacking in feeling. I definitely do not try to write things to please others, I actually think my stuff might be somewhat sui generis, with the good and bad that comes with it. But the amount of hours of love and effort that I put into it makes me feel as if I'm putting a part of my soul into what I do, so it feels like I am showing myself naked to the world and I am afraid people will call the product of my soul ugly.

Every little nasty comment feels like a razor blade across my neck. I once asked a guy that occasionally does session work if he would record a few tracks (paid) of drums and when he heard the demos he outright refused by saying that what I wrote was an intellectual exercise with no emotion or elegance (some other equivalent word was used, can't remember). I think that was the comment that ever hurt me the most. I mean, sometimes writing tracks and listening back to them makes me cry because of the feelings involved, even if they have no lyrics or are meant to talk about a specific life story, they are still the product of all the bottled up hurricane of emotions I keep inside myself. It hurts a lot hearing someone tell me there's no emotion on the most direct product of my emotions. It goes beyond subjective aesthetic taste.

I eventually found another session guy who seemed to enjoy the tracks and did a great job, but that moment still haunts me sometimes.

ATM I am trying to finishing mixing an album that has taken a few years by this point, but serious real life problems have been getting into the way. I am still hoping I can finish it in the next weeks and get someone to master it.

 

spending music income

 

i often find only having 12 notes available to be problematic. I think if we could increase the scale to 24 notes, I could double my musical output in the same amount of time and have more time for working on the time machine and the matter transporter, though I should probably fix the tractor first....

 

EZee people, i do this as a Hobby/maybe sell a few or ghost produce! But i get surprised sometimes when a track flops with plays/sales! But after a few months it starts to get plays & booms! weird how people listen/buy music

 

Fisticuffs was often used to settle musical disputes. I suggest you increase your physical training and your footwork and then challenge the drummer to a little exercize. A gentleman is always prepared to defend his musical ideas with physical force as well as dating his foes girlfriends while he is not looking.

Music can be a difficult nasty business, its best to strike the 1st blow, to set the limits of just where your intellectual line is.
also consider de-tuning his drums often behind his back it will destroy his confidence and he'll be too busy overhinking himself to delve into antisocial behaviour. Also superglue his drum sticks to his kit every now and again.

its best to have a variety of techniques when approaching music, and not all of them need to be musical, indeed most of music is in peoples heads. and thats a good thing..

 

Music is literally the closest thing we have to magic. it can change a moment, a thought, a feeling. its intangible but can strike us harder than a blow, it can bring tears. it becomes associated with people, era's, events in ones life.

you can hear a song once and love or hate it, and yet with time often you or the music changes and now you love what you hated and vice versa.

music is a gift, we are lucky to have and people who can make music are also a gift and try to remember that as the world shits all over you.
never give up... the perfect tune may not exist, but if it does, we will be the ones to create it.

music will outlive us and that in itself is magic.

 

That's the thing, the more self-centerd the music the harder to find some audience, but that doesn't mean that you suck, on the contrary. I suffered the same thing as you many years, now I'm just a lot more cynic about myself. I learned to not take myself seriously. I bet you listen to your own music a lot, do you? Me too. Nothing to be ashame of, that's why we create it in the first place. I'm unapologeticaly my biggest fan, no need much external validation, but that doesn't mean that is not welcome when someone genuinely likes what I do. And whatever mean thing other people can say about my stuff I'm said it to myself already thousands of times.